I am a freelance writer and restaurant critic based in New York City. I mostly cover the restaurant industry, but I love to use food as a lens through which to examine identity and culture.

I currently write a desserts-focused newsletter called Sweet City, where I review New York’s best bakeries, restaurant desserts, and other sweet shops.

My past work includes a column for Resy called Taste Matters where I challenged the Eurocentricity of good taste in restaurants. The column was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Media Award in 2022. I have also been published in Food & Wine Magazine, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, and New York Magazine. As a restaurant critic, I have been published in The New York Times as a co-columnist for Hungry City.

Before all that, I spent close to five years critiquing restaurants across the country as an anonymous inspector for The Michelin Guides North America.

I didn’t set out to have a career in food; my first job was in market research. I spent an invaluable two years at New York University earning my Master’s Degree in Food Studies and, before that, a formative four years at the University of Southern California studying Communications and East Asian Languages & Cultures.

I was born in Pakistan and grew up in Hong Kong, a city I still call home.

riversmahira@gmail.com
@mahirarivers